The present invention relates to direct sales activities of all types. Direct selling is the marketing and selling of products directly to consumers away from a fixed retail location. Modern direct selling includes sales made through a party plan, one-on-one demonstrations, and other personal contact arrangements, as well as internet sales. Thus, direct sales include direct personal presentation, product demonstration, and sale of products and services to consumers, usually in their homes or at their jobs. One form of direct selling includes multi-level marketing (MLM), which is a marketing strategy in which a sales force is compensated not only for product sales they personally generate, but also for the product sales of others they recruit, creating a downstream of distributors and a hierarchy of multiple levels of compensation.
Salesmen involved in direct selling are usually compensated based on a commission basis or similar arrangement. Predefined sales milestones are also used to delineate when a salesman is awarded a bonus or award. As such, active salesmen constantly stay abreast of various performance indicators, such as the amount of their cumulative sales, the amount of their recruit's cumulative sales, proximity to the next milestone, the status of prospective recruits or prospective customers, etc.
In the past, sales performance indicators were calculated and disseminated via paper. As individuals were recruited and sales transactions occurred, the related information was tallied at a central location and then disseminated on a periodic basis, such as in hard copy, to each salesman. One problem with the conventional approach, however, is that a salesman is not aware of the current status of his performance indicators in between periodic reports. This reduces the ability of the salesman to optimize his activities in between reports, so as to attain his goals or milestones. Another problem with the conventional approach is that sales and recruitment transaction data are transcribed, recorded and processed with the aid of individuals. This makes the resulting data vulnerable to human error and therefore lacking in high levels of accuracy.
Furthermore, the conventional recruiting process involves meeting and communicating with prospective recruits, following up with the recruits, and handling the process of enrolling new recruits in the sales program. In addition, the conventional sales process involves communicating with prospective buyers, showing the products for sale, handling the sales transaction and arranging the shipping or delivery of the products. All of the aforementioned sales activities involve time-consuming tasks including travel, personal meetings, data entry and paperwork. With the increasing demands on individuals' time in modern society, the time demands of conventional direct sales act as a barrier to entry for many individuals today.
Moreover, there is a need to offer discounts to consumers of direct sales. Discounts are an integral part of retail strategies for many goods and services. Vendors rely upon discounts for a variety of reasons, such as to promote new and existing goods and services and to increase the sales of that particular item or service, or to increase the sales of the merchant's other goods and services. Further, consumers rely upon discounts as a way to reduce their costs. Discount techniques include providing coupons and rebates to potential customers, but these techniques have several disadvantages, such as a historically small percentage of consumer participation and fraud. Further, advertising and marketing associated with coupons and rebates can be expensive when done through radio or television medium, and extremely ineffective when done through print advertisements. Regardless of the advertising medium, however, there is very little reason for the consumer to pass along the advertisement or coupon to others, so that a merchant must advertise or market the discount to each individual.
Another drawback of current discount techniques includes the risk taken by the vendor due to an inadequate sales volume. A vendor offers coupons or rebates in the hopes of securing future sales at full retail prices, repeat sales and ultimately an increase in overall sales. Ultimately, vendors cannot offer goods and services at a discount unless the vendor can ensure a minimum number of sales to justify the discount. But there is currently no system to mutually satisfy a consumer with a discount and the vendor with a minimum number of sales. There is also no current system that utilizes the strength of a social network to distribute information about the discounts, and create an incentive to distribute the information about the discount.
Therefore, what is needed is a system and method for improving the problems with the prior art, and more particularly for a more efficient method and system for facilitating direct sales activities.